RE: [agi] Jane

[Ben Goertzel]

hey cosmodelic one,   As you read further in the series, you'll find that Jane didn't exactly just *emerge*; she was created -- although she did grow into something very different from her originally-created form.  (Sorry to spoil an element of the plot for you ;)   But Jane is an interesting portrayal of an AI as arising from a kind of "communicational brain".   This concept is related, but not identical, to the idea of the "global brain", see   http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/SUPORGLI.html   But the conjectured global brain is *composed of* communicational elements, whereas Jane is in a way parasitic off them...   One of the great things about Speaker for the Dead and its two sequels, is the depth with which Card portrays the different psychologies and cognitive abilities of the different alien races (the pequeninos, the buggers, and Jane).  Although jane is clearly smarter than the others, the intelligences of the other three races are in a way incommensurable -- just *different from*, not better or worse than each other.  This is a lesson worth learning as we move toward creating digital intelligent beings: intelligence is multidimensional not linearly scalable.  This is true among humans but far more true in a cross-species sense.  Narrow AI is already teaching us this in a way, of course.   Of course, I think Card's novels are WAY off as futurology, in the sense that technology advances hardly at all over 3000 years in his universe.  The ansible (superluminal communication) and other tech is borrowed from the buggers, but humans don't invent much that is new and significant during 3000 years!!  This works well for the story he wants to tell, but seems phenomenally unlikely...   -- Ben G       -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of cosmodelia Sent: Tuesday, January 21, 2003 12:34 AM To: agi Subject: [agi] Jane I'm reading Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card. I'm finding the IA character "Jane" interesting because Jane emerged, Jane was not created. It seems Card thinks IA will emerge as human intelligence emerged. " Jane first found herself between the stars, her thoughts playing among the vibrations of the philotic strands of the ansible net. The computers of the Hundred Worlds were hands and feet, eyes and ears to her. She spoke every language that had ever been committed to computers and read every book in every library on every world."   Card consistently treats Jane not as a tool or device but as a character and he describes as Jane has feelings that shape her relations to the information she gathers and processes. In the book we read as Jane uses the extraordinary communication power of the ansible to scan universes of information and quickly respond to every need. The chapter "Jane" is a good explanations of superhuman life of this IA. If you read that chapter, do you think it is something close to your projects?   I know Jane character follows during the next two books: Xenocide and Children of the Mind, but I have not read them, and I don't know how Card imagines the continuation of "his" IA.   By the way, do you know some work on SF' IAs?   Cosmodelia